Survey shows that most teenagers from rural communities want to attend university, but 1 in 3 fear money is an impediment

80% of teenagers living in villages and other disadvantaged communities want to go to university, but one in three is worried that their family will not be able to support them financially, according to the latest survey conducted by the World Vision Romania Foundation.

In order to make ends meet, 70% of those who want to go to university plan on working during their studies.

World Vision Romania asked more than 300 11th and 12th grade students from rural communities how they see their chances of getting into university. The survey was conducted in September 2022 as part of the I want to be in 9th grade program.

More than 34% of respondents said their families would not be able to support them financially at college, and 78% said they are worried about the rising cost of living.

Most of the respondents (70%) plan to get a job during university. At the same time, less than half of young people from rural backgrounds hope to rely on scholarships offered by universities.

If they don't manage to get into university, the priority for almost 28% of teenagers is to get a job. Another 23% would try to get some other type of qualification, while 12.7% would start a business and 11.4% would go abroad. 19% of the teenagers said they don't know what they will do if they don't get to go to university.

When asked what might prevent them from seeking further education, over 46% said they are worried about not passing the necessary entrance exams, and 28% of of them were particularly worried about not passing the Baccalaureate.

Concerning the Bacccalaureate exam, the most widespread fears are: the new structure proposed in the Draft Law on Pre-University Education, which will measure competencies in several subjects (41.7%); that they do not really understand what their classroom teachers are teaching them (20.4%); that they do not have enough time to study on their own (17.5%); and that they do not have the money necessary to be tutored in the exam subjects (13.3%).

The survey shows that the most important criteria that teenagers from rural communities consider when choosing a university to apply to are: a passion for the offered field (86.3%), job security after graduation (81%), access to scholarships during their time there (34.6%), and as many state-funded spots as possible (30%).

The fields most sought after by respondents are Police/Gendarmerie/Military Academy (30.6%), Medicine or related fields (19%), Computing/Engineering (16.5%), Law (16%), Psychology (15.5%), Socio-Political Sciences (15%), Social Work (9.2%), Foreign Languages (8.7%), Arts (6.8), Geography (6.8%), History (4.9%), Architecture (4.4%), and Literature (3.9%).